The government presents a plan for “hunting safety” this Monday, January 9, 2022. The track of the abolition of a hunting day has been dismissed by the executive.
[Mis à jour le 9 janvier à 12h08] The government wants to better regulate the activity of hunting and presented a major security plan this Monday, January 9, in Dry (Loiret). The Secretary of State in charge of ecology, Bérangère Couillard, has established several proposals but the one that was most requested by the associations campaigning for more regulations does not appear there: hunting will remain authorized on Sundays. “We decided not to retain this option of a day without hunting. It would not meet the security objective which must be declined every day. And the statistics of the OFB [Office français de la biodiversité] do not show that Sundays are more accident-prone”, explained Bérangère Couillard in the world. And to add: “Rather than prohibit, the government prefers to put in place measures to strengthen security, and promote spaces for dialogue between the different practitioners of natural spaces”.
The figures on the dangerousness of hunting speak for themselves. During the 2021-2022 season, the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), the hunting police, recorded 90 hunting accidents, eight of which resulted in death. The 2022-2023 season which started on September 25 has already caused several deaths. However, the number of accidents has been falling for 20 years; the OFB indicated that for two years these dramas have remained “below 100”.
The battle of figures remains one of the salient points of this debate on hunting. For Mila Sanchez, co-founder of the association Un jour un chasseur, of the 83 accidents in the 2022-2023 hunting season, 57 took place over the weekend, including 39 on Sunday”. And to regret that “every day, bullets end up in houses and cars. This decision by the government means that 90% of the population must adapt, so that a small minority can continue to hunt. It’s a democratic problem, and it’s not a problem of sharing space, but of sharing time, of distribution”, she reacted to Le Monde.
What measures to regulate hunting?
- One of the main measures of this action plan is the establishment of an offense of alcoholism during hunting. The government wants to prohibit the practice of hunting under the influence of alcohol and narcotics”. This measure had already been proposed by the Senate in a report published on September 14, 2022, among the 30 proposals, the Senate wanted to “prohibit alcohol and the use of narcotics while hunting.” The executive had refused to deprive alcohol during hunting parties, the government’s action plan is more flexible and would aim to align the blood alcohol level with the rules in force in terms of the highway code. Thus, hunters will not be able to have more than 0.5 grams of alcohol per liter of blood. The government wishes to create “at the beginning of 2023 a fine to punish the act of hunting under the excessive influence of alcohol then will promote the creation of an offense by legislative means”.
- Creation of a framework of common regulations for all French departments on the practice of hunting, returning to compliance with the shooting angle of 30 degrees, the generalization of fluorescent vests, the ban on non-hitting shots).
- Implementation of better preparation of hunters for first aid actions.
- The government wants to give theoretical and practical training to all hunters by 2025.
- Walkers and residents will also be better informed of ongoing hunts in the wild, via a digital platform, an application, alerts. Hunting plans could be published at the town hall, so that the days hunted and not hunted are clearly displayed. Hunting declarations will be made compulsory from September 2023
- The possession of weapons must also be more regulated, with in particular the use of the national file of persons prohibited from acquiring and possessing weapons in the files of the federations of hunters.
The government’s proposals are the subject of a parliamentary debate and then the writing of a law, which must be adopted by the summer of 2023, before the next hunting season in France.